When you read articles about AV technology for businesses, the focus is typically on how it’s transforming the way co-workers collaborate. Improvements in video and audio quality are creating a more seamless virtual meeting experience.
But these accounts typically leave one critical question unanswered: How are these advancements in AV technology fueling business growth? Without a clear answer to this question, it can be difficult to justify spending on new technology.
Fortunately, all available evidence shows that these emerging technologies are playing a critical role in helping companies enter new markets and grow their revenue.
Here are a few ways it’s doing so.
1. Entering New Markets Requires Less Upfront Investment
In the recent past, expanding businesses into new markets required a significant amount of effort. Companies needed to lease new office space and fly new employees who lived near those markets to their headquarters for interviews. Even once operations in the new markets were up and running, companies still needed to contend with communication challenges.
Now, it’s much simpler. Rather than adding new office leases to their balance sheet, companies can instead hire remote employees in the new markets. Later, once these new employees are hired, companies can create clear lines of communication between them and their co-workers located in other parts of the world through video conferencing software.
Over the past few years, video conferencing providers such as Zoom have even begun offering language translation functionality. Meeting participants can hear the original audio as well as an interpretation if the current presenter is not speaking in their native tongue. It’s breaking down many of the barriers to international expansion that companies once faced.
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2. Sales Calls Are More Engaging than Ever Before
Businesses depend on their sales team to generate revenue by closing new deals. But, as any account executive will tell you, sales is a complicated profession.
There are so many factors that can lead to a deal falling apart. Your company’s product or service, for instance, could be too expensive for the prospect. Other times, an account executive’s pitch just might not land with a prospect. While AV technology alone can’t close deals, it can make the buying process more exciting for prospects.
As sales meetings progress, prospects can become disengaged and miss out on key selling points. Salespeople can counter this tendency by encouraging participation. Video conferencing platforms are making this possible through features and third-party integrations such as:
- Quizzes
- Collaborative whiteboards
- Icebreaker activities
- Games like bingo, trivia, and doodle challenges
A well-timed opportunity for participation can break up the monotony of a sales call and keep prospects fully invested in what your team is selling.
3. Hosting a Webinar Requires Only a Few Clicks
Webinars are an important middle-of-funnel tactic for many marketing teams. They’re a highly effective way of driving new leads among prospects and promoting upsells and cross-sells within a company’s existing customer base.
In recent years, video conferencing platforms have made hosting a webinar stress-free for organizers. Zoom, for example, lets marketing teams create and distribute user-friendly registration forms that play a key role in lead collection.
Video conferencing platform providers have also developed features to create a more engaging experience for webinar attendees, including:
- Conducting live Q&A sessions
- Breakout rooms
- Live audience reactions with emojis
- Custom scenes
At the end of the webinar, administrators can view analytics regarding attendance, engagement, and more and then use these insights as they plan future webinars. Webinars are a powerful way of reaching new audiences, and they should be a part of every company’s marketing mix heading into 2025.
4. A Great Video Can Lead to a Booked Meeting
Sales development representatives have a tough job. All day long, they’re calling and sending off emails to prospects. Many of these prospects have busy schedules and little time⏤needless to say. It can be difficult to stand out.
One way SDRs have begun standing out from the pack is by sending videos as a part of a cold outreach sequence to prospects. Oftentimes, these videos are fairly basic. They may be as simple as the SDR introducing themselves and their company and asking the prospect if they’d be interested in taking part in a product demo. Despite their simplicity, these videos are proving to be effective. For example, Salesloft and Inside Sales found that emails containing videos:
- Improve open rates by about 16 percent
- Increase email replies by about 26 percent
- Generate a clickthrough rate that’s about four times higher than those that don’t contain one
The key to creating powerful prospect email videos is succinctness. Experts recommend a video length of no more than 30 seconds. They should get straight to the point about the value your product delivers.
Discover New Growth Opportunities at Your Company
The examples above are by no means exhaustive. Every day, companies are discovering new ways to reach new customers and improve their current satisfaction through the use of emerging AV technologies.
Don’t be afraid to explore new use cases on your own. And, if you’re looking for support, help is available. A Zoom Room, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams room setup consultant, for example, can help you revamp your office space and decide between various AV technology options.
